KARACHI: Prince Karim Aga Khan, who is also the chancellor of the Aga Khan University, inaugurated on Friday the university’s Centre for Innovation in Medical Education (CIME), a state-of-the-art facility for technology-based learning for health professionals.

The aim of the centre is to transform education of health professionals through the use of simulation and virtual reality technology to develop knowledge and skills, a statement quoted the CIME director Dr Charles Docherty as saying.

“The centre aims to raise the bar for teaching and learning, thereby delivering higher standards of practice across the professions of medicine, nursing and allied health,” the statement added.

The 80,000-square-foot Rs1.6 billion donor-funded centre comprises three buildings — the Mariyam Bashir Dawood Building, the Ibn Sina Building and the Shiraz Boghani Building.

“The centre offers multipurpose teaching spaces, high-fidelity simulators and specialty environments such as the phantom-head dental lab, a cardiac catheterisation lab and telemedicine clinics,” said the statement.

“Learning from other such centres around the world, the CIME supports student-centred problem-based and team-based learning.

“High-speed communications technology allows video connectivity throughout the CIME and with international experts offering a truly ‘global classroom’ with students able to learn from specialists anywhere in the world in real-time.”

Published in Dawn, December 17th, 2017